Gov. Rick Scott’s inauguration is less than a month away. Scott is only the second Republican governor in Florida history to win reelection. Jeb Bush was the first.
Scott told reporters at the Capitol this week he'll focus on education and tax cuts, as well as growing jobs during his second term.
“I want to have the highest per-pupil funding for K-12 education in the history of the state. I will continue to hold the line on college tuition. I think we’ve got to look at what it costs to go to higher education,” Scott said. “Then I want a billion dollars in tax cuts over the next two years. Those will be the big priorities next year, but we’re going to continue to make this a state were you want to live.”
Scott also wants to spend $1 billion on environmental issues, although that doesn’t include a plan to deal with climate change.
On the jobs front, Department of Economic Opportunity Executive Director Jesse Panuccio told the Florida Cabinet Tuesday that the state has added nearly 680,000 private-sector jobs in the last four years. He said most of the jobs added during that time were in industries with an average annual wage above $39,000.
“You can also look at the employment surveys and they show that part-time work for economic reasons – that means part-time work for reasons not by choice – has declined since 2011, which suggests the increase that increasing numbers of employees who want full-time work are able to get full-time work in Florida’s economy,” Panuccio said.
Florida’s unemployment rate is now six percent. That’s down from just over 11 percent when Scott took office.
